"Mobile Internet' Gives Legs To TI; Its Chips In Handhelds; Texas Instruments sees big sales opportunities with latest Net devices.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: JAMES DETAR

It's always risky to predict the next big thing in technology. But William Aylesworth, a senior vice president at Texas Instruments Inc., has no qualms.

That next biggie, he's convinced, is the "mobile Internet" -- and he says it will drive chip sales for months and years.

Texas Instruments plans to be at the heart of the mobile Net. And it's partly going about getting there in an unusual way for a chip company. It's buying software companies.

"We're seeing the advent of the true mobile Internet," Aylesworth said. "People will have more and more uses for handheld wireless devices, be it a cell phone, a PDA or something else."

People, he says, crave the ability to access the Net from anywhere at any time -- without wires.

TI saw early fruits of its efforts just last week. On Sept. 25, Nokia Corp. unveiled what analysts say is the first third-generation cell phone -- it runs on both of the main mobile standards, GSM and WCDMA. The phones use TI chips.